Amy Affelt, author of The Accidental Data Scientist, notes that "Librarians and information professionals have always worked with data in order to meet the information needs of their constituents, thus 'Big Data' is not a new concept for them." With The Accidental Data Scientist, Amy Affelt shows information professionals how to leverage their skills and training to master emerging tools, techniques, and vocabulary; create mission-critical Big Data research deliverables; and discover rewarding new career opportunities by embracing their inner Data Scientist.
The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who's Boss Are you drowning in a sea of data? Would you like to take control of your data and analysis to quickly answer your business questions and make critical decisions? Do you want to confidently present results and solutions to your managers, colleagues and clients? If so, The Accidental Analyst is for you! Although you didn't plan for a career as a data analyst, you're now in a position where you have to analyze data to be successful. Whether you've been working with data for a few years or are just getting started, you can learn how to analyze your data to find answers to real-world questions. Using illustrated examples, we'll walk you through a clear, step-by-step framework that we call The Seven C's of Data Analysis. Read this book for inspiration, ideas and confidence to begin tackling the problems you face at work. Keep it by your desk as a reference on how to organize, analyze and display your data. Don't worry, you can continue to use your favorite spreadsheet or data analysis software—this information is not tied to any particular application. Throughout the book, we also include expert tips, tricks, and shortcuts that took years of analyzing data to discover and understand! Please visit us at www.AccidentalAnalyst.com for articles, our free newsletter and upcoming training events. Quotes This is a wonderful book, filled with practical advice. Business people who are struggling to make sense of their data will find it accessible and directly applicable to their work— a great resource for building analytical prowess. Stephen Few, best-selling author of "Show Me the Numbers" and "Now You See It" Finally, a book that clearly explains the fundamentals of business analytics! I wish that I had this book at the start of my career as a data analyst. Tim Latendress, Financial Analyst This book is an amazing resource for regular business people who want to make sense of their data and take charge of their business! It provides simple yet comprehensive coverage of business analytics. Diego Saenz, President, Petplace and former CIO of Pepsi Latin America Authors Eileen McDaniel, PhD, is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Freakalytics, LLC, specializing in analytical training and short-term projects that empower people to get the most out of their data and take decisive action to solve problems in their daily work. She is co-author of Rapid Graphs with Tableau Software 7 and the Rapid Dashboards Reference Card, also available as a mobile app, and leads the development of course training materials. Working in both scientific research and business, Eileen realized that business analysts needed a formal, step-by-step method similar to the one scientists use to collect and analyze their data. This inspired her to develop the seven-step framework for data analysis found in The Accidental Analyst. Stephen McDaniel is passionate about helping people understand, present and take action with their data. He is co-author of multiple books and courses including SAS® for Dummies and Rapid Graphs with Tableau Software 7. Stephen has been on the Faculty of The American Marketing Association and The Data Warehouse Institute and is currently Director of Analytic Product Management at Tableau Software and Principal Analyst at Freakalytics, LLC.
The Accidental Scientist explores the role of chance and error in scientific, medical and commercial innovation, outlining exactly how some of the most well-known products, gadgets and useful gizmos came to be.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Recent Developments in Science, Engineering and Technology, REDSET 2017, held in Gurgaon, India, in October 2017. The 66 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 329 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on big data analysis, data centric programming, next generation computing, social and web analytics, security in data science analytics.
Many of the things discovered by accident are important in our everyday lives: Teflon, Velcro, nylon, x-rays, penicillin, safety glass, sugar substitutes, and polyethylene and other plastics. And we owe a debt to accident for some of our deepest scientific knowledge, including Newton's theory of gravitation, the Big Bang theory of Creation, and the discovery of DNA. Even the Rosetta Stone, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the ruins of Pompeii came to light through chance. This book tells the fascinating stories of these and other discoveries and reveals how the inquisitive human mind turns accident into discovery. Written for the layman, yet scientifically accurate, this illuminating collection of anecdotes portrays invention and discovery as quintessentially human acts, due in part to curiosity, perserverance, and luck.
The rollicking memoir from the cardiologist turned legendary scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize that revels in the joy of science and discovery. Like Richard Feynman in the field of physics, Dr. Robert Lefkowitz is also known for being a larger-than-life character: a not-immodest, often self-deprecating, always entertaining raconteur. Indeed, when he received the Nobel Prize, the press corps in Sweden covered him intensively, describing him as “the happiest Laureate.” In addition to his time as a physician, from being a "yellow beret" in the public health corps with Dr. Anthony Fauci to his time as a cardiologist, and his extraordinary transition to biochemistry, which would lead to his Nobel Prize win, Dr. Lefkowitz has ignited passion and curiosity as a fabled mentor and teacher. But it's all in a days work, as Lefkowitz reveals in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm, which is filled to the brim with anecdotes and energy, and gives us a glimpse into the life of one of today's leading scientists.
Accidental Information Discovery: Cultivating Serendipity in the Digital Age provides readers with an interesting discussion on the ways serendipity—defined as the accidental discovery of valued information—plays an important role in creative problem-solving. This insightful resource brings together discussions on serendipity and information discovery, research in computer and information science, and interesting thoughts on the creative process. Five thorough chapters explore the significance of serendipity in creativity and innovation, the characteristics of serendipity-friendly tools and minds, and how future discovery environments may encourage serendipity. - Examines serendipity in a multidisciplinary context - Bridges theory and practice - Explores digital information landscapes of the future with essays from current researchers - Brings the concept of accidental discovery and its value front and center
The bestselling author of Einsteins Dreams explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by recent discoveries in science with passion and curiosity. He looks at the dialogue between science and religion; the conflict between our human desire for permanence and the impermanence of nature; the possibility that our universe is simply an accident; the manner in which modern technology has separated us from direct experience of the world; and our resistance to the view that our bodies and minds can be explained by scientific logic and laws. Behind all of these considerations is the suggestion--at once haunting and exhilarating--that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the extraordinary, perhaps unfathomable whole.
Foundational Hands-On Skills for Succeeding with Real Data Science Projects This pragmatic book introduces both machine learning and data science, bridging gaps between data scientist and engineer, and helping you bring these techniques into production. It helps ensure that your efforts actually solve your problem, and offers unique coverage of real-world optimization in production settings. –From the Foreword by Paul Dix, series editor Machine Learning in Production is a crash course in data science and machine learning for people who need to solve real-world problems in production environments. Written for technically competent “accidental data scientists” with more curiosity and ambition than formal training, this complete and rigorous introduction stresses practice, not theory. Building on agile principles, Andrew and Adam Kelleher show how to quickly deliver significant value in production, resisting overhyped tools and unnecessary complexity. Drawing on their extensive experience, they help you ask useful questions and then execute production projects from start to finish. The authors show just how much information you can glean with straightforward queries, aggregations, and visualizations, and they teach indispensable error analysis methods to avoid costly mistakes. They turn to workhorse machine learning techniques such as linear regression, classification, clustering, and Bayesian inference, helping you choose the right algorithm for each production problem. Their concluding section on hardware, infrastructure, and distributed systems offers unique and invaluable guidance on optimization in production environments. Andrew and Adam always focus on what matters in production: solving the problems that offer the highest return on investment, using the simplest, lowest-risk approaches that work. Leverage agile principles to maximize development efficiency in production projects Learn from practical Python code examples and visualizations that bring essential algorithmic concepts to life Start with simple heuristics and improve them as your data pipeline matures Avoid bad conclusions by implementing foundational error analysis techniques Communicate your results with basic data visualization techniques Master basic machine learning techniques, starting with linear regression and random forests Perform classification and clustering on both vector and graph data Learn the basics of graphical models and Bayesian inference Understand correlation and causation in machine learning models Explore overfitting, model capacity, and other advanced machine learning techniques Make informed architectural decisions about storage, data transfer, computation, and communication Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.
